LOCAL karatekas John Enrico Vasquez and Sakura Alforte made their presence felt in their debut in the 19th Asian Cadet, Junior and Under-21 Karate Championships yesterday, bagging bronze medals in the men’s and women’s U-21 divisions of the kata (forms) event in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
A bronze medalist in the Southeast Asian Games in 2019, Vasquez showed slightly better form to beat Saudi Arabia’s Abdullah Alsalem with a score of 24.54 points to the latter’s 24.08 points in securing the bronze medal.
Alforte topped Pool 1 with a score of 22.94 points, beating hometown bet Liya Koskharbayeva and Hong Kong’s Lo Sum Man to capture a bronze in her first international play in the stint supported by the Philippine Sports Commission.
“Based on their training and preparations, we were expecting John Enrico and Sakura to get a podium finish. Thankfully, they did just that,” said karate chief Ricky Lim, who is with the team in Kazakhstan.
Set to compete today in the 17th Asian Senior Karate Championships is SEA Games gold medalist Junna Tsukii, who opens her campaign in the women’s minus 50kg category against South Korea’s Jungji Young.
Also up is fellow SEA Games champion Jamie Christine Lim, who starts her bid against Taiwan’s Ku Chih-ling in the women’s minus 61kg class.
